Epic Wildlife of Tanzania

On arrival at Kilimanjaro or Arusha Airport you’ll be personally met and escorted by our driver-guide to the fashionable Arusha Hotel in the heart of Tanzania’s safari centre where you’ll spend the night.

Four Points by Sheraton Arusha, The Arusha Hotel

The Arusha Hotel is located in the bustling city of Arusha, Tanzania. The hotel offers 106 stylish rooms that feature Wi-Fi access, a television and a sitting area. Guests can enjoy a delicious meal at the onsite restaurant as well as unwind with a refreshing drink at the bar. The hotel also offers an outdoor swimming pool, a gym and a terrace that overlooks a tropical garden.

Activities, including swimming, shopping, or visiting the Tanzanite Experience museum are available for those who arrive early.

Arusha is the safari capital of northern Tanzania. Located at the foot of Mount Meru, it serves as an excellent base from which to explore the remarkably scenic surrounding area which includes majestic Mount Kilimanjaro, as well as the Manyara, Tarangire and Ngorongoro National Parks.

Arusha is a good spot to take a day or two off from the safari circuit as it features a temperate climate and lush surrounds. From here you can hike or kayak in the foothills of Mount Meru or take on the challenge of climbing Mount Meru, Africa’s fifth highest mountain, and less busy or difficult than nearby Kilimanjaro.

Leave Arusha after a buffet breakfast for Lake Manyara National Park. Here, you’ll take a short game drive through its lush groundwater forest where you might even see its famous tree-climbing lions.

In the early evening you’ll arrive at Kirurumu Manyara Lodge. Perched on the edge of the Great Rift Valley with commanding, panoramic views of Lake Manyara, you’ll be treated to a gourmet dinner. After a nightcap, retire and fall asleep to the comforting sounds of the African night.

Kirurumu Manyara Lodge

Kirurumu Manyara Lodge is set high on the edge of the Great Rift Valley, enjoying a marvellous, uplifting and panoramic view eastward over Lake Manyara, the Rift floor and Mt. Losimingori. Accommodation is provided in 27 spacious, luxurious tented cottages, 2 Honeymoon suites and 2 family cottages. All accommodations include a personal verandah that overlooks the Rift valley escarpment over Lake Manyara. Facilities and services available to guests include full breakfasts, free Wi-Fi, and daily housekeeping. Area activities include botanical walks, mountain biking, treks, hikes, game viewing and hot air balloon safaris.

Lake Manyara National Park

Situated in Tanzania’s central-northern region with the Lake Manyara to its east and the Manyara Escarpment to its west, the Lake Manyara National Park offers breathtaking views and a large variety of habitats supporting an array of wildlife. This small park is a great introduction to your safari and is home to surprising biodiversity – featuring a magnificent landscape of acacia woodlands, forests, baobab strewn cliffs, algae-streaked hot springs, swamps and the lake itself.

The park supports over 400 species of bird and the largest concentration of baboons anywhere in the world.

Other species to spot include giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, impala, waterbuck, warthog, the Cape clawless otter, and the Egyptian mongoose. Don’t miss the opportunity to see thousands of flamingos on the lake, the renowned tree-climbing lions, and large families of elephants strolling through the forest.

Leave camp after breakfast for the drive to the Serengeti National Park, passing through rich farmland until reaching the lush montane forests of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Crater Highlands. After ascending and descending the rift escarpment, stop first at Olduvai Gorge, one of the world’s most famous fossil and archaeological sites, dating back two million years and where many finds of early humans were discovered.

Tour the Olduvai Museum before a picnic lunch.

In the afternoon, continue game-viewing in the Serengeti. Undoubtedly the best-known wildlife sanctuary in the world, the Serengeti is home to the highest density of animals in the world as well as being unrivalled for its natural beauty, diversity and scientific value. During your daily game-drives you’ll witness the annual ancient drama of life, death and rebirth in this primeval wilderness.

Three nights in the classic Kirurumu Serengeti Luxury Tented Camp to really experience the safari of yesteryear. This move-able camp is in the heart of the wildlife action so that you can fully enjoy the sheer magnitude of wildlife here no matter what time of year you visit.

Kirurumu Serengeti Central Camp

Kirurumu Serengeti Camp is a luxury mobile camp, moved seasonally to take best advantage of the vast Serengeti Plains.

The camp is used as a base, a spring board for an early morning game drive, a break for a sumptuous lunch, a respite from the heat of the day and the finale to a day’s adventure where stories can be swapped around a fire. As a small and intimate camp the staff are on hand to look after a very limited number of guests and so the level of attention and service is always excellent.

The Camp moves according to season! Short grass plains in December to March and then it moves north in June to the Western Corridor and then more central in the later dry season months to take advantage of the resident game around the Seronera area. This way you know that you will always be in the best location for wildlife viewing in a small and intimate setting where you can often view wildlife form the camp itself.

Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti, together with Kenya’s Masai Mara Game Park, constitute Africa’s most famous wildlife park, spread over the enthralling landscapes of northern Tanzania. This is a precious ecosystem, supporting the annual wildebeest migration through the Serengeti and the Masai Mara. The largest mass movement of land mammals on the planet involves more than a million animals following the rains, including more than 1.5 million white-bearded wildebeest and 250 000 zebras. Prides of lions, as well as groups of elephants, giraffes, gazelles, and eland, roam among the photogenic vast grass plains between weird-and-wonderful-looking acacia trees. Aside from traditional vehicle safaris, hot-air ballooning over the Serengeti plains and horse riding safaris are on offer.

Olduvai Gorge

Olduvai Gorge is a paleoanthropological site of major significance, where an old river has carved away the rock to expose layer upon layer of volcanic soil. This is where Dr Louis and Mary Leakey found the remains of hominids: Nutcracker Man, Tool Making Man and Lucy – discoveries that have helped to fill some of the missing links in the chain of human evolution and added more evidence to the theory of modern man’s emergence in Africa.

The Cradle of Mankind now has a visitor centre where you may hear a short lecture on the work of the Leakey’s and their successors and a small museum where you may see some of their finds, including a giant giraffe – it is hard to believe that they were once even taller!

Drive to the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater, a collapsed volcano, once as high as present day Mount Meru, for an afternoon of exciting game-viewing and a picnic lunch.

Descend 2,000 feet to the floor of this 10 mile-wide ‘caldera’ that teems with a variety of wildlife, including the highest density of lions per square kilometre in Africa, open savannah grasslands, the Lerai groundwater forest and a soda lake tinged pink by thousands of flamingos.

Drive back up to the Crater rim in late afternoon for dinner and overnight at the Ngorongoro Serena Lodge on the Crater rim.

Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge

Perched on the jagged rim of the crater, wreathed in morning mist, camouflaged in river-stone and cloaked in indigenous creepers, the Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge is a triumph of ecological and architectural fusion.

Sensitively constructed so as to take nothing from its environment whilst affording endless vistas over the heat- shimmering reaches of the crater below, the clustered boulder-built buildings of the Lodge hug the crater rim, linked by rope-lashed timber walkways that skirt the buttressed roots of ancient, liana-hung trees.

The interior, radiating out from the primeval log fire glowing at the heart of the Lodge, blends the concentrated hush of a game-viewing hide with the ochre, rust and charcoal images of a prehistoric cavern. Lit by flaming wall-lanterns, clad in gigantic volcanic boulders and decorated by the iron spears, bright-beaded robes and intricately carven artefacts of the Maasai, the Lodge is a unique blend of world-class luxury, timeless volcanic splendour and ethnic style. As for the views, from lilac-streaked sunrise, to indigo star-studded night, the immeasurably ancient Ngorongoro Crater delivers a theatre of vistas, most unchanged since the dawn of time.

Strung around the crater rim, each with its own rock-enclosed balcony, the rooms feature brass lamps, embossed leather headboards, wildwood mirrors, Maasai carvings and flamboyant prehistoric wall motifs depicting fleeing giraffes, stylised gazelle and plunging buffalo. Each room draws on a cave-grey, indigo-blue and jasper-red colour- scheme, is fully air-conditioned and enjoys uninterrupted views over the Crater’s unmatched splendour.

At the end of an action-packed day, guests can also follow a gentle nature trail that loops around the Lodge through moss-hung glades and plunging ravines, take a guided walk to the Crater’s rim, relax with a herbal massage, or watch as the burning sun sinks behind the mountains from a unique vantage point on the craggy heights of the Crater’s rim.

Ngorongoro Crater

Located in Northern Tanzania, the Ngorongoro Crater is best known for its natural beauty and abundance of diverse wildlife; which makes it one of Africa’s most popular safari destinations.

Surrounded by Tanzania’s highlands, this UNESCO-listed crater is said to be the world’s largest intact volcanic caldera. Visitors can look forward to spotting the world-renowned Big Five and a host of other wildlife species including large herds of zebra and wildebeest.

It is famed as one of Tanzania’s best tourist attractions and so can be busy, but despite this it never fails to impress – offering visitors an array of wonderful activities including excellent bird watching, trekking, wildlife viewing, mountain biking and visiting a local Maasai village.

After an early breakfast, spend another half-day in the Crater photographing or simply enjoying the animals and landscapes.

At lunchtime, relax with a picnic, then leave on a 2-hour drive to the historic and newly renovated Plantation Lodge, in heart of coffee country.

Arrive in time for a cool drink and hot shower before a delicious dinner and restful night.

The Plantation Lodge

The Plantation Lodge’s location offers maximum safari enjoyment to visitors. It is situated close to the entrance of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Lake Manyara National Park, and just a short journey away from the Tarangire National Park and the Serengeti. The lodge features individually furnished rooms and suites, as well as all amenities for a comfortably relaxed vacation. Guest accommodations range from luxurious suites to stylish standard rooms and a spacious garden house.

After breakfast, return to Arusha, stopping for lunch at a popular local restaurant.

Later enjoy the benefits of day accommodations at the Kilimanjaro Airport Hotel before a late transfer to the airport for your return flight home